ITU-Samsung Regional Competition for Latin America and the Caribbean “Mobile Applications for Accessibility”

The ITU’s
Applications for Accessibility Award is a competition to promote the
creation and development of new solutions involving mobile applications for
the Android platform, focused on accessibility.

This award is primarily focused on developing innovative and creative
solutions to benefit persons with disabilities, bringing more social
inclusion and interaction, comfort and quality of life to their daily
routine through mobile technologies.

It is expected that new concepts of mobile applications to be used by people
with sensory, mobility and cognitive disabilities are developed, which may
involve services on the web or be integrated into mobile devices including
wearables, peripherals or hardware devices developed by the participant. It
is mandatory that the mobile application be developed for Android operating
systems for use on smartphones or tablets.

The solutions proposed and developed by the participants of the competition
will be analyzed by a Judging Contest Committee, composed of ITU
representatives, experts from different areas related to mobile products and
services, representatives of organizations of persons with disabilities, and
also by special guests.

Each member of the Judging Committee will assign a score to each proposed
solution, according to the following criteria: Creativity, User’s Experience
and Solution Development.

The
Invitation

To enter the contest please submit either a proposed mobile solution focused
on accessibility or submit information about the mobile solution you have
developed. While the creation of a solution prototype is not a requirement,
submission of documentation on the solution would facilitate the evaluation
of the “technical feasibility of the solution” requirement (see details
below).

The contest will accept proposals from individuals and teams. Detailed
information is available at the following webpage, where interested
participants may also register until 05 July 2015:

Period for solution development

Registered participants will have until 13 August 2015
to submit their proposal using the document template available at the
Contest webpage. Only proposals using the template will be accepted.
Additional materials such as application drawings, videos, navigable
prototypes, executables (APK's) and slide shows, can also be sent along
with the required template.

Competitors are required to maintain an ethical conduct and may be
subject to disqualification - so please note that members of the competing
team must control the majority of the intellectual property rights of the
app submitted to the competition and must account for the majority of the
work and resources put into the creation and prototyping of the app.

Participation of employees, or persons related to ITU and/or
SAMSUNG is prohibited

The ITU will not provide the
resources for the solution to be developed. Participants are
responsible for seeking the necessary resources to develop the idea.

The classification

The Judging Contest Committee, according to the number of registry
received, will make a previous analysis of the proposals and will assign
grades to all the solutions presented within the deadline established,
that involves a mobile app for Android platform, according to the table of
criteria with their respective weight and grade.

Criteria

Specification

Weight

Grade

Very low

Low

High

Very high

Creativity

· Innovation-originality of the idea

Solution not yet published in app stores

40

55

89

144

233

Solution Development

Technical feasibility of the solution

Quality and finishing of the solution presented

20

8

13

21

34

User's Experience

Size of the target public benefiting from the solution

Impact of the solution in user's life

Mobile application with good use experience

40

1

2

3

5

The sum of all grades obtained by each proposal, multiplied by its
weight - in accordance to the formula below - will be considered the final
score.

FINAL SCORE = Creativity x 40 +
Development x 20 + Experience x 40

The solutions will be sorted in descending order of their FINAL SCORE,
and the highest FINAL SCORE will be declared winner.

Omitted cases will be defined by the Judging Contest Committee

The Award

The ITU will award the winner or two members of the
winning team with a fellowship to participate in the ITU Regional Event"Accessible
Americas II: Information and Communication toALL", which will be hosted
by Colombia from 4 to 6 November 2015*. Venue of the event will be
informed in due time. The fellowship will cover air ticket from origin
city to the city of the event and return to the city of origin, in economy
class and the most direct route, as well as a daily amount to cover the
cost of lodging, meals and local transportation during the period of the
event.

Both the ITU and SAMSUNG, whenever appropriate, will promote the winning
solution in national and international events organized in the framework
of their mandate, thereby increasing business opportunities to the
author/s.

(*) In case the Winner is from Colombia, the fellowship offered by ITU
may be reallocated to another ITU event, outside Colombia, which will be
defined and informed by ITU